alvey james, e.--short history of economics as a moral science

8/3/2019 alvey James, E.--short History of Economics as a Moral Science

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53

Journal of Markets & Morality 2, no. 1(Spring 1999), 53-73

Copyright 199 9 Center for Econom ic Personalism

Introduction

Econom ics grew out o f moral ph ilosophy and eventually became on e of the

moral sciences. At som e po int the m ainstream of econom ics became d etached

from the moral sciences and then from morality itself. I will argue that this

detachment from mo ral concerns is not p art of the tradition o f econo mics. It

emerged only during the present century.

There are two major reasons why economics has become detached frommoral concerns. First, the natural sciences came to be seen as successful, and

the attemp t was made to emulate that success in econo mics by applying natu -

ral science methods, including mathematics, to economic phenomena. Sec-

ond, the self-styled economic science came to adopt positivism, which ruled

out moral issues from science itself. These points will be demonstrated below.

It is a widely held view today among main stream econom ists that econo m-

ics is free from any ideological, theological, or moral philosophy. One com-

mentato r on th e role of ethics in m ainstream econo mics has stated:

The scientification of econom ics has led to a separation of econom -ics from its ethical roots. The m ainstream econo mics of the twentieth

century fully accepts this separation. Econom ic theory is seen as a po si-

tive science which has to an alyse and to explain the m echanisms of eco-

no mic processes. Imp ortant as ethical valuations ( ought-statemen ts)

may be, they should n ot form p art of the econom ists research programm e.1

Similarly, a recent comm entator on the role o f positivism in econo mics argued

this way:

Most economists today would agree that the claim of an economic

A Short History of Economics As a Moral Science*

James E. Alvey

Lecturer in Economics

Massey University

New Zealand


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alvey james, e.--short history of economics as a moral science

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